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Latest Mishap May Spell Doom for Rogerty Arts

Although its mission statement is clearly defined, confusion over the content of a certain show at the Tacoma Center for Puppetry Arts has endangered one of the most promising wings of Two Rogers.

This brave foray into puppet shows known as the Rogerty Arts, is a critical, but not popular, success. Bold, dynamic interplay between real puppets and penis puppets, accentuated by an inventive, well-funded light show has highlighted the troupe’s five year performance journey. Tragically, commercial fortune has continued to elude Rogerty Arts, and this recent incident lays bare the tribulations that must be endured from a public that still views puppetry as subversive.

Details of what transpired last Thursday are scant, but it seems that Strom Varthammer, the athletic Norwegian male lead, mistook co-actor Hubert De La Sol’s puppet for the ship’s mast in Act IV while he was regaling the audience with his Kavorkian Slam Poetry. Insult was added to injury when this honest mistake was deemed to have violated Washington state ordinance #213.

While many believe that the Tacoma Disaster and other choreography mishaps are to blame for the public backlash, others point to early difficulties with a loose policy on the admittance of children and ‘artistic differences’ as antecedent causes. Either way, this writer would like to remind the daring cast that it’s ‘ars gratia artis’ out there boys, ars gratia artis.

Despite these setbacks, Rogerty has caught on in some areas, notably Lithuania and the Netherlands, and I am sure that this inimitable art will live on. Why, even as they serve out their sentences, we can all rest assured that some Lithuanian child is tossing and turning in his sleep, bursting with the joyous imagery of Rogerty Arts. Even dreams cannot contain it!